The demonic doctrine of karma (from Hinduism and Buddhism) must be exposed because, in this so-called Age of Aquarius, modern man is fooled and taken in by Eastern philosophy and thinking, letting it influence the Christian faith. Both Eastern faiths adhere to this and believe that actions in this life automatically determine your fate. Many Christians flippantly, or even seriously, say, "What goes around, comes around," and think that everyone gets precisely what they deserve in life like God has a ledger-book mentality, just keeping score of our deeds and dealing with us accordingly. Case in point: Job's friends accused him of evil-doing and told him to repent.
The beauty of our faith is that it is the opposite of karma: We don't get what we do deserve (mercy) and we do get what we don't deserve (grace)--both contrary to the doctrine of karma and its exact-reward concept. God doesn't just weigh out our good deeds versus our bad ones and deal with us as the result in the afterlife. Eastern thinking believes you cannot escape karma because it is the system of justice in the universe--people get precisely what they deserve, whether good or bad, and what's more, you should not interfere with someone else's karma--everyone is an island or a rock to himself and has to deal with his own reality and fate in life because he deserves it. This erroneous thinking also says that you can overcome bad karma with good karma, and this would make one believe it's alright to do evil if one balances it out or neutralizes it with a good deed--sort of like wasting fuel on a solo flight but planting a tree in remorse to make up for it.
How do we know karma is wrong? The Bible teaches that suffering is not something we can comprehend and that there's an easy answer to--one only need consult Job. If karma were true, why did Jesus suffer more than any man--did he deserve his sufferings? There is not a man alive that God is not good too and doesn't deserve to die a thousand deaths--even believers. George Whitefield was asked what he thought of the poor souls going to the gallows: "There, but for the grace of God, go I." It is said that if God were to actually wipe out evil from the earth, none of us would be left. The question is not why is there evil, but why is there good. The psalmist in Psalm 103:10 (ESV) delineates our thinking: "He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities."
Case in point: If you remember the massacre of refugees by the Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Thailand (known as the "killing fields") in the mid-'70s, you should be informed that this happened on Buddhist turf, and they refused to help their own Buddhist brothers (some 300,000 stranded in no-mans-land on the Cambodian border), because they felt they shouldn't interfere with their karma--Buddha taught that you are to be an island to yourself. It was Christian goodwill and relief organizations that stepped into the save the day and be the example of Christ's love for the outcast and rescued those in need. This is an example of that what the world needs is more Christian love, according to Lord Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, and mathematician, who happened to be atheist. There is no basis for the love and compassion of one's fellow man in a world of karma.
There is a certain manner in which we get what we deserve, reaping what we sow, but this basically refers to our eternal destiny whether in the flesh or the spirit and if we are in the habit of judging we shall be judged accordingly. Spiritually speaking, we are to sow to the Spirit, not the flesh. But Christians do indeed suffer the consequences of their acts but are forgiven and there is no eternal aftermath. The doctrine of karma has to do with the exact-reward concept that you cannot escape it and it is the final judge of your destiny.
One must not say that he has blown it and will suffer for it the rest of his life, because God doesn't punish us for our sins--He only prunes or disciplines us (according to Romans 8:28 all things will work out for the good) that we may grow and learn a lesson and be sanctified. God isn't finished with us yet and is still working on us--we are a work in progress! The immediate response when something disastrous happens, is that God is out to get us, or we may ask, "What did I do to deserve this?" We are not capable of understanding the motives of God and must accept by faith that He intends it for good just like Joseph said, "You meant it for evil, but God intended it for good" (cf. Gen. 50:20).
And so why is karma evil? It denies grace and mercy and means that there is an impersonal force in the universe meting out justice mechanically like fate. God is personal and deals with us accordingly, and knows us and has a plan of good and not of evil toward us and as Psalm 145:9 (ESV) says, "The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made." There is no one that will be able to claim that God is not good and that they got more than they deserved in life because of His blessings. The uniqueness of Christian thinking is the introduction of the concepts of grace and mercy as seen in the atonement of Christ.
People that believe in karma don't help out their fellow man, because they believe everyone must suffer his own personal karma. Karma denies the reality of a substitutionary death (no one should interfere with someone's karma), as done by Christ on our behalf. We get what we don't deserve and are delivered from what we do deserve! Eastern salvation or "nirvana" is released from this impersonal law of karma.
God is not only "great" like Islam proclaims, but He is also "good," and this is what they deny, seeing God as capricious, arbitrary, or whimsical and able to treat man unpredictably, according to any rational basis. This doctrine leads to pride in thinking because people think they are "self-made" and don't owe God anything for their prosperity (it is God who makes one have the power to get rich per Deuteronomy 8:17-18). This reminds me of the definition of an Englishman: A self-made man who worships his creator.
There is justice (meting out punishment as deserved and giving one his due). But God metes out justice with mercy and there is not always justice in this life--in which case they will meet it in eternity, so no one ultimately escapes it, except by the mercy of God in Christ. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Cf. Gen 18:25). Governments are God's ordained means to monitor evil and punish wrongdoers, but God's justice is never escaped. No one will be punished beyond that which strict justice requires, but believers escape justice by virtue of their faith in the atoning work of Christ on the cross, where He suffered for us.
We must acknowledge God's ultimate control of our destiny and that it is in His hands--He is sovereign over all. Remember what Jesus said to those who inquired why a person was born blind, whether he had sinned or his parents: "Neither, it was so the glory of God should be manifest." It is good news that there is no karma (I'm not saying we don't sometimes get what we deserve, but there is no iron-clad law that cannot be escaped and our destiny isn't controlled by it), and one should rejoice in the fact that we can say regarding our salvation: "What did I ever do, to deserve this?" This answer is nothing, it was all grace--God gets all the glory from start to finish. Soli Deo Gloria!
The beauty of our faith is that it is the opposite of karma: We don't get what we do deserve (mercy) and we do get what we don't deserve (grace)--both contrary to the doctrine of karma and its exact-reward concept. God doesn't just weigh out our good deeds versus our bad ones and deal with us as the result in the afterlife. Eastern thinking believes you cannot escape karma because it is the system of justice in the universe--people get precisely what they deserve, whether good or bad, and what's more, you should not interfere with someone else's karma--everyone is an island or a rock to himself and has to deal with his own reality and fate in life because he deserves it. This erroneous thinking also says that you can overcome bad karma with good karma, and this would make one believe it's alright to do evil if one balances it out or neutralizes it with a good deed--sort of like wasting fuel on a solo flight but planting a tree in remorse to make up for it.
How do we know karma is wrong? The Bible teaches that suffering is not something we can comprehend and that there's an easy answer to--one only need consult Job. If karma were true, why did Jesus suffer more than any man--did he deserve his sufferings? There is not a man alive that God is not good too and doesn't deserve to die a thousand deaths--even believers. George Whitefield was asked what he thought of the poor souls going to the gallows: "There, but for the grace of God, go I." It is said that if God were to actually wipe out evil from the earth, none of us would be left. The question is not why is there evil, but why is there good. The psalmist in Psalm 103:10 (ESV) delineates our thinking: "He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities."
Case in point: If you remember the massacre of refugees by the Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Thailand (known as the "killing fields") in the mid-'70s, you should be informed that this happened on Buddhist turf, and they refused to help their own Buddhist brothers (some 300,000 stranded in no-mans-land on the Cambodian border), because they felt they shouldn't interfere with their karma--Buddha taught that you are to be an island to yourself. It was Christian goodwill and relief organizations that stepped into the save the day and be the example of Christ's love for the outcast and rescued those in need. This is an example of that what the world needs is more Christian love, according to Lord Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, and mathematician, who happened to be atheist. There is no basis for the love and compassion of one's fellow man in a world of karma.
There is a certain manner in which we get what we deserve, reaping what we sow, but this basically refers to our eternal destiny whether in the flesh or the spirit and if we are in the habit of judging we shall be judged accordingly. Spiritually speaking, we are to sow to the Spirit, not the flesh. But Christians do indeed suffer the consequences of their acts but are forgiven and there is no eternal aftermath. The doctrine of karma has to do with the exact-reward concept that you cannot escape it and it is the final judge of your destiny.
One must not say that he has blown it and will suffer for it the rest of his life, because God doesn't punish us for our sins--He only prunes or disciplines us (according to Romans 8:28 all things will work out for the good) that we may grow and learn a lesson and be sanctified. God isn't finished with us yet and is still working on us--we are a work in progress! The immediate response when something disastrous happens, is that God is out to get us, or we may ask, "What did I do to deserve this?" We are not capable of understanding the motives of God and must accept by faith that He intends it for good just like Joseph said, "You meant it for evil, but God intended it for good" (cf. Gen. 50:20).
And so why is karma evil? It denies grace and mercy and means that there is an impersonal force in the universe meting out justice mechanically like fate. God is personal and deals with us accordingly, and knows us and has a plan of good and not of evil toward us and as Psalm 145:9 (ESV) says, "The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made." There is no one that will be able to claim that God is not good and that they got more than they deserved in life because of His blessings. The uniqueness of Christian thinking is the introduction of the concepts of grace and mercy as seen in the atonement of Christ.
People that believe in karma don't help out their fellow man, because they believe everyone must suffer his own personal karma. Karma denies the reality of a substitutionary death (no one should interfere with someone's karma), as done by Christ on our behalf. We get what we don't deserve and are delivered from what we do deserve! Eastern salvation or "nirvana" is released from this impersonal law of karma.
God is not only "great" like Islam proclaims, but He is also "good," and this is what they deny, seeing God as capricious, arbitrary, or whimsical and able to treat man unpredictably, according to any rational basis. This doctrine leads to pride in thinking because people think they are "self-made" and don't owe God anything for their prosperity (it is God who makes one have the power to get rich per Deuteronomy 8:17-18). This reminds me of the definition of an Englishman: A self-made man who worships his creator.
There is justice (meting out punishment as deserved and giving one his due). But God metes out justice with mercy and there is not always justice in this life--in which case they will meet it in eternity, so no one ultimately escapes it, except by the mercy of God in Christ. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Cf. Gen 18:25). Governments are God's ordained means to monitor evil and punish wrongdoers, but God's justice is never escaped. No one will be punished beyond that which strict justice requires, but believers escape justice by virtue of their faith in the atoning work of Christ on the cross, where He suffered for us.
We must acknowledge God's ultimate control of our destiny and that it is in His hands--He is sovereign over all. Remember what Jesus said to those who inquired why a person was born blind, whether he had sinned or his parents: "Neither, it was so the glory of God should be manifest." It is good news that there is no karma (I'm not saying we don't sometimes get what we deserve, but there is no iron-clad law that cannot be escaped and our destiny isn't controlled by it), and one should rejoice in the fact that we can say regarding our salvation: "What did I ever do, to deserve this?" This answer is nothing, it was all grace--God gets all the glory from start to finish. Soli Deo Gloria!